USA As A Police State

Many rage against Donald Trump, while singing the praises of Obama. They overlook that the Donald duck is what the Obama cat dragged home. How? Those who like false explanations call Trump supporters racist. However, Obama is personally popular, with a favorability rating of more than 50%, something rare for a president finishing his mandate. Meanwhile their anti-establishment rhetoric is strong (they detest Hillary Clinton, a blonde). So what irks Trump supporters is not so much the color of one skin, but the fact they have little skin in the game. For seven years, I wrote that the Obama’s administration, plus the Federal Reserve, deliberately favored the richest and especially the financial sector (say through Quantitative Easing, which directed money to the biggest banks).

Now the poorest are enraged. And the (plutocratically owned) media tell us that this “populism” is a dangerous form of racism. You want to see racism? Here it is:

Living While Black Is A Dangerous Condition. Obama Has Nothing To Do With It.

Whereas, the obvious explanation is that average people are suffering as they see their median income, the median social fabric, their median everything go down, except for Obamacare copays, and for huge inflation striking not just healthcare, but education, and lack of upwards mobility.

My friend John Michael Gartland told me that: “The American middle class pays 20%+ more every year in medical insurance payments and gets 40%+ less benefits. The political elite has no idea what regular people pay for anything. President Obama says fanciful things with sincere oratory but very little of it is true. At best, it is good intentions not backed up by reality.”

Suppose the following. You are stuck somewhere, you don’t have the means to move. Somebody in the neighborhood comes to you and accuses you to have shot at them years ago, and you missed. Suppose also that you have never touched a gun in your life. You are accused of a complete lie. What to do? Apologize? But an apology would acknowledge that what did not happen, happened: it would make you an accomplice of your own victimization, and a culprit in two ways (of an act of violence that you did not commit against someone else, and of an act of violence you did commit against yourself).

So, what is the wisest course? Get a gun. It may seem counter-intuitive that arming oneself for ultimate violence is the wisest course. And for the individual, it is not, if the individual is willing to forgo all dignity. But, for a community, arming oneself is generally better than harming oneself.

There are two ways to abuse people: neglect them, or directly assault them. If one can get abused people to apologize, they will join in their own abuse, and take a beaten dog mentality. Making them even easier to abuse.

Another trick to rule is to divide by dividing patterns of abuse. The rage of more and more young African-Americans is a healthy reaction to a pattern of abuse meant to destroy self-worth. The abuse has increased with the repression. A Darwinian system has been set-up to subdue rebellious low lives.

Philando Castile was pulled over in July by a police officer in a car. It was at least his 46th traffic stop. Nearly all for minor traffic violations. It was his last.

After the stop — over a broken tail light — the police officer was told by Castille himself, that he, Castille carried, legally, a gun. Apparently scared that Castile could grab said gun, the officer shot and bled to death the 32-year-old. Castile’s girlfriend then live-streamed the dialogue she had with the officer on Facebook, sternly retelling the story of how a traffic stop for a low-level offense turned into a legal execution… while making sure of calling respectfully the assassin “Sir”.

Castile’s story has been the rule, for decades. Simply, good thinking people ignored it. Only now, thanks to modern technology, does the method become hard to deny. Eric Garner, Samuel DuBose, Sandra Bland — these are just a few of the victims of police and the criminal justice system over the past several years, but they all fall into the same basic framework: a routine stop or arrest for a low-level offense goes horribly wrong, leaving someone dead after they were accused of a misdemeanor or crime that doesn’t even involve any prison time.

Why? The police in the USA is trained to terrify the population into respectful subjugation (notice the analogy with Islam). That keeps said population focused on eating sugar (subsidized), corn syrup (subsidized), and watching sport on TV (subsidized) happening in the stadium (subsidized). Instead of having the population daydreaming about changing the system into a better place.

The criminal justice system in the US has become profit generating: there are private prisons, their companies are on Wall Street.

But local communities also share in the profits the abuse generates.

The law enforcement system make these encounters with the law happen frequently, and with increasing weight in a person’s life, once that person has been detected as a low life, and especially a low life who does not respect orders well.

It begins with one ticket or a traffic stop. But if someone can’t pay that fine, police will stop or arrest him or her again to get that someone to pay up. This leads to that someone getting fined again for not paying up already. And again. And again. One ticket brings a vicious cycle that can destroy a life.

With each of these encounters, someone’s record piles up — giving officers more reason, in the view they have been trained to have, to stop him or her, because they see the person’s record when running a license plate. Each time the arrests happen, the exasperation of the victim augments. At some point, they snap (we have videos testifying to victims saying they had enough, after being arrested dozens of times; they were then killed, one way, or another).

Neighborhoods with poor people of color are heavily policed, so miscreants are more likely to catch a cop’s eye if they run a stop sign, fail to signal on a turn, have a broken tail light, or sell untaxed cigarettes.

This isn’t just about a few police killings. It’s a criminal justice system that’s biased towards a Prussian like discipline for low lives. That’s even true with drugs: for an equal mass of the offending product, the sentences are ten times harsher on the sort of cocaine poor people use, than on the refined powder the rich use.

The USA is a multiracial society where low lives can keep on living, as long as they obey the system strictly. Otherwise the police’s ominous presence is there to remind them they can be shot. Appearances of fairness abound. Obama was made president and a Nobel laureate, but then was told, as he knew he would be, to obey the system strictly. Being smart, and all that, it’s exactly what he did. That’s why Obama gave so much to the hyper wealthy, the same who now embrace Hillary Clinton. (To compensate for his loss of dignity, he is an expert at looking full of it.)

When lauding the US model, with its ultrapowerful financial pirates, its high inequality, its performance oriented work ethics (certainly the highest, by far, of the countries which view themselves as most decent), supporters forget to mention the police state aspect. Even more striking, they forget to mention that it was roughly multiplied by ten, after Bill Clinton passed severe laws which set a very stern ambiance… And nearly doubled the incacerated population.

(This is only the tip of the iceberg; total population under “judicial supervision” in the US, is now more than eight millions.)

This will not end well. But when will it end? The nasty plutocratic Roman system was the sorry predecessor of the present one. It ended as total degeneracy of everything. The alienation of Roman “populus” (people) from themselves lasted up to eight centuries (in the parts which were invaded by the Islamists, and the Oriental Part, Pars Orientalis). In the Occident, the system collapsed when the Franks and other Germans took control around 480 CE. In other words, the corruption of democracy into plutocracy can last extremely long before the plutocracy loses control: a generation of dummies brings up another generation of dummies, etc.

(Archeology has shown, that, at least in the east, and until the devastation of war set in, the Roman empire was very prosperous, economically speaking; what decayed was its intelligence, obviously from an excess of fascism and theocracy. That defect, in turn, brought the invasions. Something to meditate as hordes of Islamists try to enter Europe; at this point, in the last year, at least four millions, with three millions held up by the Ottoman sultan Erdogan, in a deal with the EU…)

Planetary devastation will probably precede plutocratic collapse. Because there is so much We The People has to understand, before attempting any revolution, and it is very far from evern knowing what all the dimensions of understanding are. The otherwise excellent article “The Tyranny Of A Traffic Stop” fails to understand the root of the big picture completely: the tyranny we have now, extending all the way down to traffic stops, is one of the means to impose a tyrannical ambiance. Such a satanic ambiance being the essence of plutocracy, when the law violates goodness, decency, and everything human, everyday, just because it can. One falls again in the dominion of that old instinct, perversity, for perversity’s sake.

Allright, this is how the West was conquered. However, the empire now extends from sea, to shining sea. It’s not the empire which has to be extended further, inasmuch as the planet, to be saved. Besides, one can hardly present the US as a model, when it is so much about terrorizing the innocent.

26 Responses to “USA As A Police State”

The police state tactics are getting some attention from the media yet the whole issue gets twisted with the racism that pervades much of white US population. Trump taps into this but it may have backfired on him and the GOP/Tea Party. The tone is getting more shrill daily.

Your assessment of the situation is quite telling. Much in the vein of the frequent observations of Chomsky, Hedges and others who get short shrift in the plutocratic controlled media.

The concept of “attacking police” is very generous in the US. This said, some people do attack the police. One reason not to be neglected, is that there seems to be quite a few undercoover cops in unmarked cars (at least in parts I am familiar with). I also know a (white male) police detective, he is absolutely never in uniform. So if one is suddenly given orders by an unmarked cop, it may lead to armed conflict. The in-uniform police generally considers they are going to get shot at, and act accordingly (shoot first, bring many cars with shining lights, just for a “routine” stop).

Up to the publication of so many videos showing horrible shootings of innocent, or quasi-innocent people, the oligarchs who rule the US felt it was OK to kill people here and there, to encourage the others. When I have driven a fancy (“luxury”) car, I never got a ticket (although, being sport cars I drove them way harder). I got stopped once (allegedly speeding on a freeway), no ticket (I think the cop just wanted to look at the car, I was going at the same speed as the flow of traffic). Depending upon which car one is driving, a cop can immediately ascertain if one is a partisan of the established order (smile), or a low life (something one can shoot at). There are a few PhD theses to be written on this…

“…impose a tyrannical ambiance. Such a satanic ambiance being the essence of plutocracy, when the law violates goodness, decency, and everything human, everyday, just because it can.”

Goodness and decency–Americans just can’t find a way to make profits from them, so they have to be eliminated from the scene. As you once said about US healthcare–we made it into a profit center. Harassing and sucking the last bit of money out of the poor makes policing a profit center. It also gets them into the prison system which is another profit center. Profit seeking needs victims to profit by, it extends to all scales, so that now, even the climate of the entire planet is a victim. Satanic/tyrannical ambiance–yes that sums up America today.

Indeed. Exactly. But not the worst. The worst is that this “American”, or more exactly “West Country Men” rapacious mentality pervades the entire planet. Even an aghast France is contaminated: French “socialists” are more Wall Streetists than socialists (same observation for the German SPD; the “S” is for “Socialist”, but the “D” has got to be for the Demon… Just as when the SPD supported the Kaiser…). Consider Moscovici, the “socialist” French EC finance and economy minister. Moscovici is clever, cultured, balanced, but still insist France will go below the 3% of deficit: under Obama the USA went all the way up to 15% (fifteen percent). What does that mean? Like Barroso, Moscovici waits for his income from the prime investment bank of “Europe”, Goldman Sachs...

The issue of the EU-enforced fiscal “Disziplin” is so muddled I smell a rat, or shall we say a smokescreen.

That “Disziplin” has been sold to the conservative electorate in the EU as “fiscal responsibility”. It resonates well with the economically illiterates’ “common sense” approach to a country, which is to manage it like a household or a retailing shop (an approach even “The Economist” once trashed). It also resonates well with the German and Dutch electorates’ visceral urge to downplay and bully so-called “Southern” Europe, seen as profligate and lazy by nature.

So, even though it has been disproven again and again by serious economists (*), it is politically not advisable for the EU to simply drop it in the waste basket. Expect the austerian hectoring to go on for some time.

However, looking at facts beyond soundbites, you can observe that threatened “sanctions” are NOT implemented.

Especially interesting is the case of France, which has been generous with promises of reining in its deficit, but never really gave in. Hollande’s massive inertia and dissembling skills saved it from really damaging austerity, which may be his main accomplishment, to the fury of those French right-wing ideologues who saw through him. The Barroso Commission was earnest about its threats; the Juncker Commission only postures. Gone are the days of the Olli Rehn dictatorship.

There even is a rumor that a very discreet agreement has been reached with Germany – in order to allow France to go on fielding the only genuine defense capabilities in Europe, for the common good, it must be allowed to access the financial markets unhindered.

So the austerian noises coming from the EC and the “promises” from Moscovici (who is no longer a Minister) should be seen, IMHO, as part of an elaborate play to keep the clueless right-wing voters in line for the coming elections in Germany, and possibly in France.

After the elections, and with the departure of a vocal proponent of Reagan-Thatcher Dumbonomics (**), the EU may well be more open about a long overdue change of path.

(*) See the Alesina-Ardagna-Reinhart-Rogoff “bloopers” as Krugman put it:

(**) Note that even the hard right Tory May has also distanced herself, even mouthing the dreaded words of “Industrial Policy” which were absolutely banned in the EC during the UK’s membership. I think she’s lying, but she well perceives her voters’ changing mood.

Even Obama, at some point, and later Krugman, parroting what was said here, long ago, recognized that a country was not a household. A household is given money. A sovereign country MAKES the money it needs. The Tang knew this, so did the Romans, way back.

Indeed, you are right. The rotting rat one smells is that AUSTERITY IS THE ROYAL ROAD TO PLUTOCRACY.

Merkel is a crafty politician who simply rides the knee-jerk enthusiasm of her constituents for “common sense” austerianism and punishing others. But the vocal, dedicated, true believer missionary of the Holy Church of Dumbonomics is the UK (under New-Labour and Tories alike). Dissembling noises by May notwithstanding. Newly installed hard right Govts always state they stand for compassion and the small people, before carrying on with the dismantling of whatever stands in the way of fleecing and enslaving their clueless flock.

Schaüble is her Olli Rehn on steroids and it does pose a problem, which is why I’d rather have Merkel stay popular.

Agreed. May is the great dissembler, so great I wonder if she dissembles herself to herself. She probably does not know where she is going. Just like Merkel, with Schaüble, she keeps her enemies (Boris and the other one) under her wing.

Bill Clinton’s pay at for-profit education company topped $17.5 million
The new figure brings the Clinton’s total compensation from Laureate to more than $17.5 million for his five-year role as an “honorary chancellor.”
LN.IS/WWW.POLITICO.C…

That would be actually terrible: Hedge fund managers would have to pay tax. NATO free riders, such as Germany, would have to contribute 2% GDP for defense (instead of 1.3%). Corruption from judges taking favorable decisions for huge companies and then cashing in… may have to stop. “Inversions” may have to stop. And so on.

On the positive side, if Clinton is elected, the fools will soon discover that it is just as terrible, as, for example the “health corridor” of Obamacare expire the day my personal friend the great one leaves office, and the charade becomes blatant…

Sorry Mike, I thought you knew the context, as you have a definite opinion that not voting for Clinton is “BAD”. When context is known, one does need a treatise to explain it.

This being said, most Clinton voters are aware of VERY little context. Indeed. The few points I evoked are well-known by people interested by US politics. Trump suggested that many categories (high financial types, for example) and corporations (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) which little or no taxes, would pay taxes.

Obamacare sort of works right now, because the Federal government has instituted “health corridors” which insured PRIVATE health care insurance companies. They expire the day Obama leaves, etc.

I know very well a human rights lawyer who explains that Bill Clinton’s actions caused the death of thousands of US citizens, by changing laws which mostly oppressed minorities, toughening up enormously the punishments. Basically innocent people are now locked for life, because of these racist laws. Aforesaid lawyer is trying to get them out, as you would know following the Obama news (Obama just graced many inmates unjustly sentenced. She says it’s not clear that voting Clinton is a more humanist position than voting Trump. She is definitively left, not right, or even center, by the way.

I think it is very simple. Always start simple – than get into the complexities as needed, I always say.
Yes, I’m sure the Clintons have done a lot of bad things. And I’m sure Trump would too.

Modern day American Democracy is not all cracked up to what Adams and Jefferson could of imagined 300 years ago. Btw – I’m all for developing a new system, etc. or getting some new blood into the current system, but that’s not going to happen right now – as is evident from the latest voting results.

That being said – please think back to the days of Al Gore vs. George Bush – there were a few people saying that there is not really big difference in either party (on a broad scale / with reference to big business / buying votes / scratching backs / etc.). Ralph Nader came along and took just enough votes away that we ended up with George Bush. And that was the worst thing that has happened to this country in a long time! That man did more harm than any single president in history (it was under his presidency that 9-11 happened; we had one of the great housing bubbles in history, just about bankrupting us; we went to war and killed thousands / all told he put us in debt for more than 10 trillion dollars (including Obamas bail out). That 10 trillion may be what ultimately will be our demise (we may need another war to get out of it or something, etc.).

My point is – that it makes a very big difference who we pick at this point. We need to do everything we can to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office. Any anti Clinton posts do more harm than good at this point. Donald Trump could be catastrophic!

Well, Mike, I detest George Bush. In 2003, more than 95% of the Americans I knew stopped talking to me, because we had a deep disagreement about invading Iraq. I was extremely against it (nota bene).I view Bush and his associates as war criminals who should be judged. However, I do not consider George Bush as worse than Bill Clinton. Clinton was way worse, and so extremely effective at hiding his evil, that he is still viewed as angelic by the despoiled left. He dismantled Roosevelt’s work in finance.

Just watch the graphs in my essays, especially the penultimate one. Also the very last essay may contain data, say about the deep state, that you are unaware of. Obama, against whistle-blowers, has been worse than George Bush (even taking torture into account). Granted that Gore would have been better than Bush. Actually he won the election, but was paid off with the Nobel Prize. The problem with the perverse leadership of the US in the last century or so, has been the fact that the relevant data have no reached the public. Same for most other countries. Clinton Trump, or Trump Clinton is white house versus house white.

I agree that what Clinton did with deregulation was very bad. And the African American got a very raw deal, with ‘Three Strikes’, etc. , and Obama did some covert stuff, and was a bit of a hawk – but Patrice, that PALES IN COMPARISON to what George Bush did: putting us 10 trillion in debt (the ramifications of this are yet to be seen but could be catastrophic); and going to war, spending a billion dollars a day, completely ruining another culture, etc. (not to mention the lives lost); and not being a good guardian of our economy (the housing bubble).

That was hands down worse than anything Bill or Hillary have ever done – which is my point: there is a difference between the Democrats and Republicans – and there is a difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump could start a war, or make bad economic decisions that could put the nail in the coffin of USA. HE MUST BE STOPPED!

Financial deregulation was, is, utterly catastrophic. It has put in place, worldwide a shadow government. In 2009, first Obama year, 11% of the money, WORLDWIDE, was DARK (=of unknown ownership). In 2015, it was more than 50%. Thanks, oh great Obama, thanks. Now the invisible hand owns most WORLDWIDE (including ALL media, except for tiny outfits such as mine). Oh, BTW, debt, for a sovereign country, does NOT matter. First day in office, Roosevelt devalued debt by 33%, closed all banks.

The housing bubble (still on-going) is a CONSEQUENCE of financial deregulation, and the power of high financiers to detour all money, their way. BTW, under Obama around one year GDP was given, to the RICHEST. What we need, throughout Euramerica is a housing construction program, but the high financiers block it. Hillary Clinton is an extreme right wing Republican, and Eisenhower was a Marxist (relatively speaking).

Wars are coming, they are already there, the Syrian war was made way worse by Obama’s treacherous, last minute refusal to strike Assad, leaving the French all exposed, all alone, and at war in more than half a dozen countries (as everybody can see). Moreover, Obama made propaganda for Islamism, leaving, once again, alone in the front lines. Now the whole Middle East has blown up, and this is no accident, but policy of the American Deep State (it has enabled the US to become again the world’s number one producer of fossil fuels, ahead of Russia, and nearly 250% above the Saudi fossil fuel production!)

Hillary Clinton and President Obama are on opposite sides of the TPP fight.

Clinton says she opposes this corporate-written trade deal. Obama supports it and wants to rush it through a lame-duck Congress after the election.

Elizabeth Warren agrees with Clinton. Bernie Sanders agrees with Clinton. Most Democrats agree. And more and more are speaking out.

Sign our petition urging the White House to take the TPP off the table. And urge Clinton and all Democrats to speak out loudly and consistently against the TPP, and to explicitly oppose it in a lame-duck Congress.

This weekend on Meet The Press, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) became the first member of the Clinton-Kaine ticket to specifically address the TPP in a lame-duck Congress:

“Companies were given rights to enforce provisions, but the labor and environmental provisions could not be effectively enforced…I’ve asked again and again to understand this piece of the TPP, and I’ve never gotten a good answer. We can’t have a deal that cannot be enforced. And so, for that reason, yeah, I’m going to oppose it in the lame duck if it comes up after election day.”

Chuck Schumer (D-NY), likely the next Senate Democratic Leader, made similar news. In a video released by investigative journalists at Undercurrent on Sunday, he was asked about the TPP and said:

“I don’t want it to come to a vote. We need to change. If I become Majority Leader, we’re going to change the whole way we do trade.”

Sign our petition urging the White House to take the TPP off the table. And urge Clinton and all Democrats to speak out loudly and consistently against the TPP, and to explicitly oppose it in a lame-duck Congress.

Agreed Altandmain! As Saddam Hussein said, shortly before being executed, “I don’t understand it. We had Western laws. We had good laws.” Saddam’s Iraq was no paradise by Western standards… But certainly that secular Iraq, with lessened sexual inequality, nearly inexistent religious strife, was much better than what has happened afterwards… And what could only happen afterwards.
An other example is Egypt: it’s much better under the dictatorship of general/president Sissi than under the Muslim Brotherhood.
Even, and it hurts me to recognize it, Morocco is better off under its plutocratic king descending from the Prophet than after elections putting the priests (‘mullahs’) in power.